Juice extractors commonly have a base which includes a motor and controls therefor, a centrifugal type blade basket for comminuting comestibles to release their juices, a filter for separating the comminuted comestibles into juice and pulp, a juice bowl in which the juice collects, and a cover for the juice bowl.
Juicer extractors are subject to a variety of design considerations. It is generally desirable to: (a) maximize the amount of juice extracted, while (b) minimizing the amount of pulp in the juice. These goals must be obtained within such parameters as manufacturing costs; ease of assembly and use; and user safety.
Additionally, at least certain components of these juice extractors must be cleaned after use. Current juicers can be difficult for certain persons, such as the elderly, to disassemble for cleaning. This is particularly true of the blade basket which, because it is located within the juice bowl, is often difficult to remove from the motor shaft.
Because the juice extracting process involves rapidly spinning blades, precautions must be taken to reduce the risk of injury caused by the user coming into contact with the moving blades. These precautions usually include a safety interlock switch for the motor that rotates the blades. Interlock switch systems sometimes hinder the operation of the juice extractor and tempt the user to bypass them. Also, prior art interlock systems are often not inexpensive to implement, a requirement if the extractor is to be sold at a reasonable price.
In order to keep manufacturing costs to a minimum, the juice bowl, which collects the juice and funnels it to the exterior of the juice extractor, should be as compact as possible. However, in extractors with compact juice bowls, the spinning blade basket can cause juice to be propelled at a considerable velocity through the juice discharge spout and beyond the container designed to collect the juice. This causes a loss of juice, creates a mess in the working area, and may soil the operator.
Commonly, no provision is made in prior art juicers for damping or suppressing vibrations generated by the moving parts of the extractor. This vibration may be severe enough to cause the extractor to walk or scoot off of the support surface on which it is placed.
The foregoing and other drawbacks of heretofore available juicers are eliminated, and many other advantages provided, by the novel juice extractors disclosed in parent application No. 07/811,572 (the "'572" application"). Those juice extractors have: a base which includes a housing and a motor; a rotating blade basket detachably coupled to the motor output shaft for separating comestibles into pulp and juice; a bowl surrounding a substantial portion of the blade basket for collecting the juice; a juice bowl cover; and an arrangement for so mounting the juice bowl on the juice extractor base that: (a) when the bowl is rotated in one direction relative to the base, the bowl is locked to the housing; and (b) when the bowl is rotated in the opposite direction, the bowl is unlocked and displaced away from the motor drive shaft to detach the blade basket from the drive shaft. The blade basket of the juice extractor has an array of knives or blades for shredding the comestibles being juiced and an inverted, apertured, frustoconical filter through which the juice is expressed by centrifugal force as the blade basket rotates.
Assembly of the blade basket and the juice bowl to the base of the juice extractor is facilitated by a motor output shaft-to-blade basket drive coupling which allows the blade basket and the output shaft to be rotated relative to each other to couple them together. Thereafter, complementary surfaces on cooperating elements of the coupling so contact each other when the motor output shaft is rotated that the drive hub imparts the rotation of the output shaft to the blade basket.
The juice bowl has an inner wall which keeps juice from splashing out of the bowl as it flows into the bowl from the blade basket filter. It also has a spout through which the juice flows to a pitcher or other container. A novel baffle arrangement keeps the juice from splashing as it flows into the spout from the juice bowl.
An interlock keeps the motor in the juice extractor base from being turned on unless the juice bowl is locked to the housing of the juice extractor base and a cooperating cover is locked in place on the juice bowl. This keeps the operator's fingers and foreign objects away from the blade basket and prevents splashing.
Vibrations of the juice extractor motor and the blade basket are absorbed by a novel arrangement which supports the motor in, but efficiently isolates it from, the housing of the juice extractor base. Vibration absorbing feet absorb additional mechanical energy and help keep the juice extractor from walking across the surface on which it is supported.
Notwithstanding its advantages over other juice extractors, there are areas in which the juice extractors disclosed in the '572 application could advantageously be improved. Specifically, there are circumstances in which juice may escape from the juice bowl of those extractors or be sprayed through the juice discharge spout onto the work surface or even the operator of the juice extractor, notwithstanding the baffle arrangement employed to keep this from happening. At times, pulp exiting the juice bowl may hang up in the pulp discharge chute, requiring that the operator turn off the machine, remove the juice bowl cover, and clean out the pulp discharge chute. Also, it has been found that it is possible to assemble the covers of the juice extractors disclosed in the '572 application to their juice bowls in a manner which defeats the safety interlock. This allows the juice extractor motor to be turned on, even though the cover is not properly and securely locked to the juice bowl.